[CMake] cpack makes good source release, but empty binary release

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2006-12-16 13:04-0500 Bill Hoffman wrote:

> Alan W. Irwin wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Question for the CPack developers here.... Is this relative install path
>> limitation for CPack really necessary or just a temporary programming 
>> expedient that should be straightforward to fix?
> Most likely CPack should be re-worked to use DESTDIR instead of using 
> CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX.

I think this is an excellent idea because the DESTDIR technology has been
around for a while and is therefore presumably well tested (certainly 
DESTDIR works with the absolute install paths of PLplot). The
implementation should be extraordinarily simple (do an internal "make
install" with DESTDIR set to some temporary staging area, create tarball
from that temporary staging area, remove temporary staging area).

In fact, we will do the above steps by hand as a workaround for the current
problem with absolute paths until the CPack implementation is fixed.

Furthermore, the move to DESTDIR automatically solves one other "make
package" issue that has just come to light.

If I completely remove my install directory, and run the usual cmake and
make followed by "make package" the install directory is populated. This is
an unexpected side effect which is particularly nasty in those situations
where the install directory is under root control (which forces you to do
"make package" under the root account). The temporary staging area used by
DESTDIR automatically solves this issue with the current implementation.

Bill, assuming you see no issues with changing CPack so it uses the DESTDIR
approach for the binary release, please let me know when the change gets
into CVS so I can try it out.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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